“开倒车”？中国弱化英语教育意味着什么
‘Reversing Gears’: China Increasingly Rejects English, and the World
As a student at Peking University law school in 1978, Li Keqiang kept both pockets of his jacket stuffed with handwritten paper slips. An English word was written on one side, a former classmate recalled, and the matching Chinese version was written on the other.
1978年在北京大学法学院读书时，李克强的外套口袋里塞满了手写的纸条。纸条上一面写着一个英文单词，一位前同学回忆说，另一面写着对应的中文。
Mr. Li, now China’s premier, was part of China’s English-learning craze. A magazine called Learning English sold half a million subscriptions that year. In 1982, about 10 million Chinese households — almost equivalent to Chinese TV ownership at the time — watched “Follow Me,” a BBC English-learning program with lines like: “What’s your name?” “My name is Jane.”
It’s hard to exaggerate the role English has played in changing China’s social, cultural, economic and political landscape. English is almost synonymous with China’s reform and opening-up policies, which transformed an impoverished and hermetic nation into the world’s second-biggest economy.
英语在改变中国社会、文化、经济和政治面貌方面所起的作用，怎么说都不过分。英语几乎是中国改革开放政策的代名词，该政策将一个贫穷封闭的国家变成了世界第二大经济体。
That’s why it came as a shock to many when the education authorities in Shanghai, the most cosmopolitan city in the country, last month forbade local elementary schools to hold final exams on the English language.
这就是为什么当上海这个中国最国际化城市的教育部门上个月禁止当地小学举行英语期末考试时，许多人感到震惊。
Broadly, the Chinese authorities are easing the workloads of schoolchildren, amid an effort to ease the burdens on families and parents. Still, many Chinese people with an interest in English can’t help but see Shanghai’s decision as pushback against the language and against Western influence in general — and another step away from openness to the world.
总的来说，中国当局正在减轻学生的学习任务，致力于减轻家庭和家长的负担。尽管如此，许多对英语感兴趣的中国人还是忍不住将上海的决定视为对英语和西方总体影响的抵制——也是远离开放世界的又一步。
Many call the phenomenon “reversing gears,” or China’s Great Leap Backward, an allusion to the disastrous industrialization campaign of the late 1950s, which resulted in the worst man-made famine in human history.
许多人称这种现象为“开倒车”或中国的“大跃退”，这个说法影射的是20世纪50年代末一场灾难性的工业化运动，曾导致人类历史上最严重的人为饥荒。
Last year, China’s education authority barred primary and junior high schools from using overseas textbooks. A government adviser recommended this year that the country’s annual college entrance examination stop testing English. New restrictions this summer on for-profit, after-school tutoring chains affected companies that have taught English for years.
去年，中国教育部门禁止小学和初中使用海外教科书。今年早些时候，一位政府顾问建议该国每年一次的高考应该停止考英语。今年夏天，针对营利性课后辅导机构的新限制影响了很多长年教授英语的培训机构。
Original English and translated books are discouraged at universities, too, especially in the more sensitive subjects, such as journalism and constitutional studies, according to professors who spoke on the condition of anonymity. Three of them complained that the quality of some government-authorized textbooks suffered because some authors were chosen for their seniority and party loyalty instead of their academic qualifications.
一些不愿透露姓名的教授表示，大学也不鼓励原版英文和翻译书籍，尤其是在新闻和宪法研究等更敏感的学科。其中三人抱怨称，一些得到政府授权教科书的质量受到了影响，因为其中一些作者是因其资历和对党的忠诚而不是学历而被选中的。
The president of prestigious Tsinghua University in Beijing came under fire this summer after sending each new student a Chinese-language copy of Ernest Hemingway’s “The Old Man and the Sea.” He wrote in a letter that he wanted the students to learn courage and perseverance. Some social media users questioned why he would choose the work of an American author or why he didn’t encourage the students to study for China’s rise.
今年夏天，北京的著名学府清华大学的校长在给每位新生发了一本欧内斯特·海明威(Ernest Hemingway)的《老人与海》(The Old Man and the Sea)中文版后，遭到了抨击。他在一封信中写道，他希望学生们学会勇气和毅力。一些社交媒体用户质疑他为什么会选择一位美国作家的作品，或者他为什么不鼓励学生为中国的崛起而学习。
In some cases, Communist Party orthodoxy is replacing foreign texts. Elementary schools in Shanghai may not be conducting English tests, but a new textbook on “Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism With Chinese Characteristics for a New Era” will be required reading in the city’s elementary, middle and high schools starting this month. Each student is required to take a weekly class for a semester.
在一些情况下，共产党的正统理论正在取代外国文本。上海的小学可能不会进行英语测试，但本月开始，上海的小学、中学和高中将要求阅读一本关于“习近平新时代中国特色社会主义思想”的新教材。每个学生都被要求在一个学期内每周参加一次课程。
The Communist Party is intensifying ideological control and nationalistic propaganda, an effort that could turn the clock back to the 1950s and 1960s, when the country was closed off to much of the world and political campaigns overrode economic growth. A nationalistic essay widely spread last week by Chinese official media cited “the barbaric and ferocious attacks that the U.S. has started to launch against China.”
共产党正在加强意识形态控制和民族主义宣传，这一努力可能会让局面回到20世纪50年代和60年代，当时中国与世界大部分地区隔绝，政治运动优先于经济增长。中国官方媒体上周广泛传播的一篇民族主义文章提到了“美国已经开始对中国发动的野蛮而凶猛的攻击”。
Even just a few years ago, the Chinese government still emphasized learning a foreign language. “China’s foreign language education can’t be weakened. Instead, it should be strengthened,” wrote the Communist Party’s official newspaper, People’s Daily, in 2019. The article said nearly 200 million Chinese students took foreign-language classes in 2018, from elementary schools all the way to universities. The vast majority of them were learning English.
仅在几年前，中国政府仍在强调学习外语。“中国的外语教育不能削弱，而要继续加强，”共产党的官方报纸《人民日报》在2019年写道。该文章称，2018年有近两亿中国学生学习外语，从小学一直到大学。他们中的绝大多数都在学英语。
For a long time, the ability to read and speak English was considered a key to well-paying jobs, study-abroad opportunities and better access to information.
长期以来，阅读和说英语的能力被认为是高薪工作、出国留学机会和更好信息获取渠道的关键。
When Mr. Li studied law in Beijing in the late 1970s, the country had just emerged from the tumultuous Cultural Revolution. He and his classmates wanted to learn Western laws, but most of the books were in English, said Tao Jingzhou, Mr. Li’s college classmate and a lawyer in Beijing now. Their professors encouraged them to learn English and translate some original works into Chinese.
上世纪70年代末，当李克强在北京学习法律时，这个国家刚刚从文化大革命的混乱中走出来。李克强的大学同窗、现生活在北京的律师陶景洲说，李克强和同学们都想学习西方法律，但大部分课本都是英文的。教授鼓励他们学习英语，并将一些原著翻译成中文。
Mr. Li became part of a group that translated the book “The Due Process of Law,” by Lord Denning, the British jurist.
李克强成为了英国法学家丹宁勋爵(Lord Denning)著作《法律的正当程序》(The Due Process of Law)翻译团队的一员。
In 1980s and 1990s, young Chinese in many cities congregated at “English corners” to speak a foreign tongue to one another. Some brave ones, including the future Alibaba founder Jack Ma, struck up conversations with the few English-speaking foreign visitors to improve their conversational skills.
在上世纪80和90年代，许多城市里的年轻中国人会聚集在“英语角”，用外语互相交流。一些大胆的人，包括未来的阿里巴巴创始人马云，开始与少数讲英语的外国游客交谈，以提高他们的会话技能。
As the internet developed, a generation of Chinese learned English from TV series like “Friends” and “The Big Bang Theory.”
随着互联网的发展，一整代中国人得以通过《老友记》(Friends)和《生活大爆炸》(The Big Bang Theory)等电视剧学习英语。
Some businesspeople struck gold by teaching English or offering instruction on how to take tests in the language. New Oriental Education and Technology, a company based in Beijing, became such a cultural phenomenon that it inspired a blockbuster film, “American Dreams in China.” The hero taught English the way many in China learned it, such as memorizing the word “ambulance” as the Chinese for “I can’t die.” (“Au bu neng si.”)
有商人靠英语辅导或提供英语考试指导而发了大财。位于北京的新东方教育科技集团成为一种文化热潮，激发了票房大片《中国合伙人》的创作。片中主人公用中国的学习方法教授英语，比如把“救护车”这个词记成“俺不能死”的中文谐音。
China’s top leaders used to pride themselves on their English. Former President Jiang Zemin recited Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address in his 2000 interview with “60 Minutes” and told aggressive Hong Kong journalists that their questions were “too simple, sometimes naïve.” As recently as 2013, Premier Li delivered a speech partly in English in Hong Kong.
中国最高领导人过去常以会说英语而自豪。前国家主席江泽民在2000年接受《60分钟》(60 Minutes)采访时背诵了林肯的葛底斯堡演说，并告诉咄咄逼人的香港记者，他们的问题“too simple, sometimes naïve”（太简单，有时很幼稚）。而在最近的2013年，李克强总理在香港作出了一次部分是英语的演讲。
English lost some of its sheen after the 2008 financial crisis. Xi Jinping, China’s paramount leader, doesn’t appear to speak it.
2008年金融危机后，英语失去了一些光彩。中国最高领导人习近平似乎不会讲英语。
Now, English has become one of the signs of suspicious foreign influence, a fear nurtured by nationalist propaganda that has only worsened in tone since the outbreak of the coronavirus. As a result, China’s links to the outside world are being severed one by one.
如今，英语已经变成可疑境外势力的特征之一，自新冠疫情暴发以来，这种被民族主义宣传助长的恐惧情绪在语调上更加恶化。结果，中国与外部世界的联系正在被一一切断。
China’s border control authority said in August that, as part of pandemic control procedures, it would suspend issuing and renewing passports except for urgent and necessary occasions. Middle-class Chinese citizens with expired passports wonder whether they will be able to travel abroad even after the pandemic.
中国边境管理当局8月表示，作为防疫程序的一部分，除了紧急必要情况外，将暂停签发和续签护照。护照已经过期的中国中产公民怀疑，哪怕等到疫情之后，他们也不能再出国旅行。
Some residents in the eastern city of Hangzhou who received phone calls from abroad immediately got calls from the local police, who asked whether the calls were scams. Scholars and journalists who participated in an exchange program sponsored by the Japanese Foreign Ministry were called traitors and urged to apologize in early summer.
东部城市杭州的一些居民在接到境外电话后，会立刻被当地警方联络，询问他们那是不是诈骗电话。初夏时，参加由日本外务省主办的交流项目的学者和记者被骂为汉奸，并被要求进行道歉。
For Chinese people trying to keep their connections abroad, it may feel like the end of an era. Share prices of New Oriental, the education giant, tanked in July after the Beijing government announced crackdowns on after-school tutoring services. The Shanghai government’s announcement drew praise online from some nationalistic quarters.
对于试图与海外保持联系的中国人来说，这可能感觉像是一个时代的终结。在北京市政府宣布打击课外辅导机构之后，教育巨头新东方的股价在7月出现暴跌。上海市政府的公告在网上受到了一些民族主义团体的赞扬。
But as long as China doesn’t shut its door to the outside world, English will still be viewed by many as crucial toward unlocking success. After the Shanghai announcement, an online survey with about 40,000 responses found that about 85 percent of respondents agreed that students should continue to learn English no matter what.
但只要中国不关闭对外开放的大门，英语仍将被许多人视为开启成功之路的关键。上海发出公告后，在一项约有4万人参与的网络调查中，约有85%的受访者认为，无论如何，学生都应该继续学习英语。
Covid-19 and tensions between the two countries have hurt the flow of Chinese students into American universities. Still, the U.S. Embassy in Beijing said it had issued 85,000 student visas since May.
新冠疫情和两国之间的紧张局势导致赴美读大学的中国学生人数减少。但美国驻北京大使馆表示，自5月以来，它已签发了8.5万张学生签证。
A lawyer in Shanghai with a nationalistic bent wrote on his verified Weibo account that he would like his daughter to learn English well because English would be helpful for China’s economic growth.
上海一位有民族主义倾向的律师在其认证微博帐户上写道，他希望女儿学好英语，因为英语对中国的经济发展有帮助。
“When could Chinese stop learning English?” he asked, then answered his own question: When China becomes a leader in the most advanced technologies and the world needs to follow it.
“什么时候可以不学英语？”他问道，然后他对自己的问题做出了回答：当中国成为最先进科技的领导者，全世界都需要追随的时候。
“Then,” he wrote, foreigners “can come to learn Chinese.”
“到那天，”他写道，就是让外国人“来学中文”了。